Franklin Millard Cossitt

Most people who have taken pictures know that
George Eastman was the inventor of the first camera that used a roll
of film. What most people do not know is that two years before
George Eastman invented his first Kodak camera, he and
Franklin Millard Cossitt received a joint patent for a roll film
camera. On November 30, 1886, United States Patent No. 353,545
was granted to G. Eastman and F. M. Cossitt for the Detective
Camera.

Franklin Millard Cossitt was born on May 16, 1863 in
Smith Falls, Ontario, Canada to Levi Cossitt and his wife, Mary
McCallum. He emigrated to The United States in 1880 and became a
U.S. citizen. Franklin Millard Cossitt was the 3rd great grandson of
Rene and Ruth Cossitt. Franklin married Carrie Estelle Grey on
February 26, 1886 in Rochester, New York. They had one child, a
son they named Millard Grey Cossitt who was born in 1891. Because
of Millard Grey Cossitt's divorce, his two children took the name of
their step-father so there are no living descendants of Franklin Millard
Cossitt who bear the last name of Cossitt.

The Detective Camera consisted of a leather covered
box that weighed 4 pounds. Its dimensions were 6 x 6 x 10 inches. Inside was a shutter that was a hollow, truncated,
triangular prism of sheet metal which was on a pivot. The open
base faced the lens and during exposure, the apex of this funnel-like
device traveled across the film. In today's world, it would be
similar to a focal-plane shutter. The camera accepted either a
roll film holder for negative paper (48 exposures) or a holder for 4" x
5" glass
plates. There were many production problems from the start and
only 40 of these cameras were ever produced for sale to the public. One
of these Detective Cameras may be in the Smithsonian Museum, but no
others are known to exist today.

In 1885 George Eastman began the production of machine
made photographic paper, as opposed to hand coated paper being
manufactured by The Anthony Company. Franklin was an operator of
the Eastman's paper coating machine. In January of 1887, just two
months after the patent for the Detective Camera was granted, Eastman
discovered that Franklin Cossitt had been hired away by his chief
competitor, The Anthony Company. There were allegations of
infringements of Eastman's patents for the photographic paper manufacturing
machine which were never proven.

After leaving The Anthony Company, Franklin Cossitt
formed the Cossitt Photographic Paper Company in Chicago. In 1906,
while residing in Binghamton, New York, he received a US patent
which was for an improved process to coat cellulose nitrate film with
emulsion. He received his last patent in 1920.

Franklin died on December 23, 1936 in Toronto, Canada where he is
buried. Carrie died there in 1941.